


Devil Inside

by Brumeier



Series: Killer Instinct [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dark Character, Gun Violence, Hospitalization, M/M, Prompt Fill, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:52:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Blood prompt:author's choice, author's choice, [whatever] is in the bloodIn which Rodney receives some visitors while he's recuperating in the hospital, one expected and one not.





	Devil Inside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [respoftw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/gifts).



“Hey,” Jeannie said softly. “How are you feeling?”

Rodney shifted on the bed, wincing as his stitches pulled. “I’ve been better. You didn’t have to come all this way.”

“It’s not every day my brother gets shot.” Jeannie kept her tone light and joking, but the expression on her face told a different story. Rodney reached for her hand.

“Still alive.” His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton thanks to the painkillers. “I’m in law enforcement, you know. This happens sometimes.”

“Well, I hate it.” But Jeannie squeezed his hand and blinked back her tears. “Does this mean you’re getting a partner now?”

“A partner is no guarantee.” He was almost certainly going to get one, though. Rossman had been showing Rodney unexpected leniency on that particular subject but being wounded on the job with no backup was going to change that.

“It would make me feel better.”

“You can mother hen me when they cut me loose tomorrow,” Rodney promised. “How long are you staying?”

“A week. But I can extend that if you need me to.”

There was no way Rodney could put up with his sister for a full week, much less longer. He knew she meant well, and that she worried, but they didn’t have a lot in common. Jeannie was a housewife and a mother, happy in her domesticity. Rodney personally thought she was wasting her intellect, letting her finely-tuned mind atrophy, but he’d long ago learned to hold his tongue on _that_ subject.

“Do you remember when Buster died?” Rodney asked, apropos of nothing. The painkillers were really messing with him.

Jeannie huffed out a laugh. “How could I forget? You spent weeks trying to reconstruct his last days to figure out how he died. You interviewed everyone in the neighborhood. Mom got a lot of angry calls.”

Buster had been the family dog. He’d met his demise when Rodney was eleven, and he’d been absolutely certain Buster had been murdered. And he’d been right. Creepy Dale McHenry from up the street had killed Rodney’s dog, and for absolutely no reason.

“When you decided to join the FBI mom said you always had it in you: that drive to solve puzzles and work things out.”

Rodney remembered being lavished with praise, not only for finding out what happened to Buster but also for alerting the adults that there was something wrong with Dale. Everyone knew kids who abused animals turned into serial killers. Well, Rodney now knew that wasn’t actually the case, that there were a lot of factors to be considered in such situations, but back then he’d been something of a hero. He’d liked that feeling. He’d like it a lot.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to Dale?” Rodney asked.

Jeannie shrugged. “Who knows? Hopefully his parents got him the help he needed.”

The McHenrys had moved, Rodney recalled. A year after Buster died. Maybe Dale got therapy or maybe he was in jail somewhere for murder. Rodney had never followed up once he had the resources to do so.

He wondered what John had been like as a child. Had animals in his neighborhood gone missing? Turned up dead? There wasn’t much information on John Sheppard, at least none that Rodney could dig up without drawing unwanted attention. Both of John’s parents were dead, and he had a brother in private care of some kind. There hadn’t been anything suspicious about either parent’s death, at least not in the autopsy reports Rodney had read. Natural causes.

“Do you think I was ever interested in right and wrong?” Rodney hadn’t meant to squeeze Jeannie’s hand so hard, or to voice aloud the question he’d been asking himself for the last few months. “Or was it just the challenge?”

“Mer?” Jeannie looked at him intently, her gaze sharp as a knife. “What’s going on?”

“Must be the painkillers.” Rodney tried to laugh it off, but what he really wanted to do was confess. He wanted to tell Jeannie what he’d done, either for her absolution or her confirmation that he was turning into a monster. He wasn’t sure which.

Maybe there’d been something bad in his blood all along, and it was only just now coming out.

Three men. He’d condemned three men to death for John. It didn’t matter that they were terrible people, abusers and killers themselves; that was a fine line for anyone to walk, much less a federal agent.

“You know you can talk to me, right? About anything?”

“Not everything.”

Jeannie leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Maybe you should think about taking a leave of absence. Get away from the job for a while. You work too hard.”

“Maybe.” Rodney yawned. “I’m a little tired. Can we talk later?”

“Of course.” Jeannie gave his hand one final little squeeze before she let go. “I’ll go over to your apartment and make up the guest room for myself. Okay?”

“Don’t go poking around in my things. Especially the case files.”

“I’m not a snoop, Meredith.”

Rodney just waved her off. He knew she’d tidy up and fill the fridge and probably wash all the bedsheets, and then lecture him about his housekeeping skills when he was home again. It was their usual routine.

He fell asleep worrying that Jeannie would see the terrible changes in him. And worrying even more than she wouldn’t.

*o*o*o*

The next time Rodney woke he got the sense it was really late. The gap between the window curtains was dark and he couldn’t hear anything beyond the closed door to his room, though it wasn’t completely dark because there were safety lights set on a dimmer.

He wasn’t sure what had woken him until he turned his head and saw John sitting in the chair beside the bed, watching him. Rodney’s skin flushed hot.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

Rodney couldn’t tell if that was a lie or not. It had been several weeks since their last meet-up, another sex romp in another high-end hotel, and Rodney hadn’t sent John another target yet. There was no reason for him to be in Washington.

“Shooting someone is so impersonal,” John said. “There’s no finesse, no connection.”

“It also hurts like hell,” Rodney said.

“Who did it?” John leaned back in the chair just a little, giving the impression he wasn’t really interested in the answer. Rodney knew better.

“Just some low-level asshole in a local gang. He was supposed to be my informant, help me get enough information to bring down the whole organization.”

John nodded. “And he shot you instead.”

“It was a risk I had to take.”

Rodney was handling every shitty case Rossman sent his way in an effort to show that he was a team player and the best at his job. He desperately wanted back in on the serial killer case that John was at the center of, though he wasn’t so sure of his motives anymore. Did he want to derail the case? Or have an excuse to stop supplying John with victims?

“You work too hard. You should take a vacation.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just go to Aruba.” Rodney rolled his eyes. “And wait for you to show up in my hotel room for some wild sex followed by involuntary sedation? Or maybe you want to expand your killing spree internationally.”

That came out sounding more bitter than he’d intended, and John gave him a puzzled look. It wasn’t like Rodney didn’t have a choice. He could stop engaging with John or turn his name over to the lead investigator on the Grandpa Killer case. The sex was pretty damn good, sure, but was it good enough for Rodney to keep risking his job and his mental health?

John shifted in the chair, leaning forward, his gaze intent even in the dim lighting. 

“My father died before I could kill him,” he said. “Everyone loved him, but no-one really knew him except for me and my brother. He was an evil man.”

Rodney was surprised at the confession, because John never revealed much about himself. Or his motivation for killing men of a certain demographic. But now it was clear that, in killing these other seemingly upstanding men who were really monsters, John was killing his own father over and over again.

It was disappointingly textbook.

He didn’t ask what John’s father had done to him and his brother; John’s MO told him all he needed to know about that. Knife play and repeated strangulation, and any of that having involved children turned Rodney’s stomach.

“I don’t like it,” John said, so softly Rodney almost missed it. “But it’s work that has to be done.”

Rodney wasn’t sure what to say to that, but he didn’t have time to formulate a coherent response before John stood up and leaned over the bed. He kissed Rodney, soft and gentle.

“I’ll be in touch.”

And then he was gone.

*o*o*o*

Two weeks later Rodney’s would-be informant turned up in the coroner’s office. He’d been shot once in each knee, once in each shoulder, and five times in the face.

Gang violence, the authorities said.

Rodney knew better.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Still trying to figure this AU out. LOL! One fic at a time. I appreciate everyone who is supporting this crazy, murderous version of McShep. Thank you for egging me on! ::grins::
> 
> For respoftw, who suggested Rodney being injured and John taking care of the assailant.


End file.
